Toronto’s tech scene is so hot the city created more jobs than the San Francisco Bay area, Seattle and Washington, D.C., combined last year, while leapfrogging New York in a ranking of “talent markets.”

A 13-acre site along Toronto’s waterfront between Lower Sherbourne and Parliament streets will see a mix of residential, office and retail development. 215 of the units will be affordable housing condos but just how affordable is up for debate.

The vote comes amid what many experts are calling an affordable housing crisis in the city. A recent City of Toronto survey of some 4,895 publicly-available rentals found the average monthly rent was $1,829 per month, far higher than the figure the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation defines as affordable: $1,240 per month

A report by Mortgage Professionals Canada, which represents mortgage brokers and others working in the mortgage industry, estimates about 100,000 Canadians have been prevented from buying their preferred home since late 2016, because of new federal mortgage rules that aim to ensure buyers can still afford their mortgages even if interest rates are significantly higher than the rate they negotiate.

Starting Sept. 17, the new property transfer tax will require people to report additional information, including their name, citizenship and social insurance number, if they purchase through a corporation or trust.

Charla Freeland, 27, and Brian Freeland, 32, are graduates of Howard University in Washington, and both still work in the city for the radio station Sirius XM. But they came here to escape DC’s soaring real estate prices and the stresses of city life. As Brian puts it when we’re seated in the living room: “I like my space.”

Serrano’s daily struggles are symptoms of a state in crisis. For decades, Connecticut coasted fat and happy off defense firms, insurance companies, and a handful of super-rich financiers who came for the manicured lawns and to escape the higher taxes of neighboring New York and New Jersey. But the good times have ended, and Connecticut has been caught flat-footed.

“There’s so much wealth in San Francisco that we can [use to] address a longstanding issue,” said Mary Howe, the executive director of San Francisco’s Homeless Youth Alliance. “This is an opportunity for all of us to come together: We all benefit from seeing people move beyond poverty and homelessness.”

Now, local governments are trying to curb or at least channel the surges that clog streets, diminish housing supplies, pollute waters, turn markets and monuments into no-go zones, and generally make life miserable for residents. Yet almost all of them are learning that it can be far more difficult to stem the tourist hordes than it was to attract them in the first place.